ReNe: chinese valentine's day

Apparently, today (7th day of the 7th lunar month) is qī xī (七夕), or what is colloquially known as the Chinese Valentine's Day. It's based on the love story between Niulang (牛郎) and Zhinu (织女). (No imagination with the naming... it's literally 'cowherd' and 'weaver girl').

In Japan, this festival is known as tanabata, and in Korea, chiseok.

ReNe: when DIYing in a foreign country

Sometime back, I wrote about noting the differences in the houses between Canada, which generally have wooden drywalls, and apartments in Singapore, which generally are made of concrete. Also, the concept of posts. When Mike first made a hole in the wall, he was a little stunned at how easy it was (you don't even need a powerdrill). He has since happily made a few more holes. Since it's easy.

So today, I was amused to see a post about the reverse experience (an American who's now living in HK).

Lately, we've been preparing our guest bedroom for a new arrival; today's task was installing black out blinds and a curtain rod. Sounded easy enough. In North America, we'd always been pretty good at doing things around the house. All it should take, really, is a screwdriver and maybe a drill, right?

In Hong Kong, DIY is almost a foreign concept. The walls of most apartments are concrete or brick, layered with plaster. Complicating matters, the electric, water and plumbing lines run through the walls in a somewhat random pattern. One wrong step with the drill and we have major damage. Even something as seemingly simple as hanging a picture can create trouble – masonry hangers are available, but have a weight limitation – make a mistake with the positioning and you're left with a permanent mess.

MiKE: Don't store vinegar in the freezer

Ok. So, we went to T&T last evening. T&T is this huge Asian (predominantly Chinese) supermarket chain in Canada (someone said 'the biggest'). Let's just say that, like Ikea, it is rich enough to offer free shuttle service to and from convenient pick up locations. We bought quite a lot of stuff, including a 50-piece bag of Tako Yaki, which I just dumped into the basket without checking the price. The eventual bill exceeded $50, which was mysterious until we went home and found out that that bag of balls cost $17.99. Well, not the point of this post, I guess. Here are some pictures from T&T:

The entrance to T&T. This outlet was located at what seemed to be a near industrial estate part of the city, not far from downtown by straight line distance, but not well served by mass public transport. Large place, as you can see:

Outside, we were just next to a dock, with a pair of huge cranes that I think are used to lift vessels out of water and into dry storage; there seemed to be a storage area of sorts nearby. In this shot, you get bonus point for locating CN Tower:
And as you can see, the water is nearly frozen over. Made for a rather pretty scene.

We had dinner there. I bought supermarket sushi, which, even though was priced at 75c per piece, added up to a price that was comparable to that which you can get at restaurants. Sushi here, I've noticed, as with some other restaurants, tend to have rice which was mushed up, slightly too wet and slightly too compacted, not fluffy enough. Serene bought a dim sum set, which came with siu mai that was the juiciest that we had tasted in some time.

T&T has this free seating area, that does not have those odious large "NO OUTSIDE FOOD ALLOWED" signs. But then again, the closest place to here that sold food was at least 15 minutes walk away, so I guess they were in no danger of losing rent. I like the concept, a place where people could sit down, enjoy the food that they just bought, sit down for a rest after a tiring shopping trip, and generally feel attached to the place.

Ok, here's the part where I talk about the title. Like I mentioned, we bought a bottle of Mizkan Japanese brown rice vinegar. Brought it back, with no mishaps, then wanted to store it in someplace cool. The fridge was getting somewhat crowded, and I remembered that the Oden seasoning, water, salt, and flavourings, did not freeze in the freezer. So I thought to try the same; put the bottle in the freezer.

This morning, while preparing breakfast, I noticed a faint sour odour, which I could not trace to anything in particular; until Serene suggested that it resembled vinegar. And then I remembered. Here is a normal bottle of vinegar for comparison; this was the old bottle:

And this is what happened when the vinegar froze:



Pretty hur? Yes yes, I know all about water expanding upon freezing, but I really did not expect that the vinegar solution to freeze over too. Yes it was a waste, but anyway, it was useful in providing something of visual interest?

Update: The frozen vinegar melted away, and the bottle sort of disintegrated. It seems like the bottle had been held together by the label, and the bulk of the frozen vinegar preventing it from collapsing. I wanted to pick up the bottle, and it just broke up: